From Paignton's website:
Devon conservation charities are looking forward to another busy year.
Paignton Zoo Environmental Park and Living Coasts in Torquay have plans that include major conferences, new exhibits and new species.
Living Coasts is to unveil the next stage of its underground development. The Local Coasts area is to be home to new species due to be announced soon.
Meanwhile, Paignton Zoo is to build a new Amphibian Ark facility for endangered amphibians as part of an international zoo campaign.
Amphibians are cold-blooded vertebrates that can live on land but breed and develop into adults in water. Frogs, toads and salamanders are all amphibians. It has been said that the amphibian extinction crisis is the greatest species conservation challenge in the history of humanity.
With the new Baboon Rock still at the planning stage, the only construction projects at Paignton Zoo will be relatively modest. A new zebra house is planned and a new primate aviary will be added to Monkey Heights to house a mixed exhibit of white-faced saki monkeys, goeldi monkeys and pygmy marmosets. A new binturong exhibit is also planned.
Paignton Zoo previously had binturongs up to 2005. The Zoo was home to white-faced saki monkeys many years ago, before they became a European Endangered species Programme (EEP) species. Paignton Zoo Research Officer Kirsten Pullen is the EEP co-ordinator and stud book keeper for the species, which is described as an engaging species with good educational opportunities.
Cusimanses (small mongooses from the forests of West Africa) and brush tailed porcupines are coming from Shaldon Wildlife Trust and will go into a new exhibit that should be open by half term. This will be on the site of the old penguin pool, more recently used for water voles from a native species project. The Zoo has had both cusimanses and brush tailed porcupines before, though not recently.
Paignton Zoo is hosting a major animal welfare conference in 2009. The ninth International Conference on Environmental Enrichment takes place at the Riviera International Conference Centre in June.
The Whitley Wildlife Conservation Trust will continue to support work in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Malawi and South Africa. Senior Research Officer Dr. Vicky Melfi will return to Sulawesi to develop an action plan for macaque conservation. Overseas Conservation Officer Andy Bowkett is likely to go back to Tanzania and/or Kenya to do more duiker work. There will be ongoing PhD research into howler monkeys, duiker and whitebeams.
The Paignton Zoo gardeners are to revamp the visitor car park to provide a home for rare conifers, interesting birches and summer flowering shrubs. Reptile Tropics is being planted with species of economic value to people. There will also be new planting around the tiger area to create an immersive mix of plants along an Asian forest theme.
Executive Director Simon Tonge said: “Economically, it is likely to be a tough year, but we know we offer our visitors value for money at both sites as the last two years have been record-breaking ones for visitor numbers. It will also be another year of extreme pressure on fragile habitats and endangered species both around the world and here at home.
Conservation could well suffer in the economic downturn but we will continue to do everything we can as a charity to support conservation work at home and abroad.”